


The Witch's Apprentice

by AgustinaPrasanti



Series: Here be Dragons [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Improper use of magic, Magic, Magic-Users, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 09:45:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6561460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgustinaPrasanti/pseuds/AgustinaPrasanti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What should you do when your teacher's away and you have a bucket-load of chores to finish?</p>
<p>For young witch-in-training Charlotte, the answer was obvious.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Or: Why you should NOT leave a cocky little apprentice alone in your magic shop.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Witch's Apprentice

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, another thing inspired by something else.  
> But, hey, imitation is a form of flatter, right? (or however that saying goes)  
> Besides, I couldn't not include witches and magic.
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy~

Three months. That was how long Charlotte had been training to be a witch. Of course, it wasn't that long, all things considered. But she was eight years old and still very much impatient in the way children were. Needless to say, she was very proud of the progress she'd made, even if it was just levitating a soda can.

But really, perhaps she was the most arrogant piece of work there ever was. Hecate had lost count of how many times she'd had to stop the kid from attempting any of the dangerous spells that were way above her level. She had long regretted letting slip the fact that Charlotte had a higher mana level than what was even normal for a witch.

But today, Hecate had to go on an errand. Which left the shop in the care of Charlotte. 

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this was a terrible decision. Other than the fact that general consensus was that leaving an establishment in the hands of a child was a Very Bad Idea, the fact that it was cocky little Charlotte made it all the worse. The kid could get her hands on who knows what, and could maybe wreck the entire block.

But Hecate couldn't not go, and she couldn't take Charlotte with her as well. And she was sure the child would throw an impressive fit if she told her to go home. So, really, that left her with only one option.

Before she left, Hecate put all her spellbooks and charms inside her cupboards and chests and locked them with the strongest locking charm she knew. Charms were much more complex than spells, and no matter how much magical strength she had, Charlotte couldn't open it without the right understanding of how the charm worked.

And so, feeling just the tiniest bit better (since she knew the girl could get herself into trouble, even without the magic), Hecate said her farewells and reminded Charlotte to do her chores.

But even though she already put precautions, it was not enough to stop Charlotte.

Before her teacher had even left, Charlotte had swiped a spellbook and ripped a page from it. She hid it in her pocket, and her teacher was none the wiser. Say what you might, but tricking a witch (and succeeding at it, no less) had its own thrill to it.

Now, there wasn’t much an eight year old could do. So before leaving, Hecate had closed the shop and told her apprentice to go dust the basement.

Now, magic was a beautiful, amazing thing. It could make something out of almost nothing. So of course it was no wonder that Hecate had managed to make the basement larger on the inside than on the outside. Unfortunately for Charlotte, that meant that she had to clean a literal cavern of useless objects Hecate had collected over the years. She doubted she'd be able to finish it within the day.

And that thought upsetted Charlotte. Because that would mean that Hecate only thought of her as some snot-nosed brat who always needed to be watched over.

Charlotte smiled as she looked at the page she’d ripped out. It was a charm to make objects do as you command. A rather simple charm, compared to others of its caliber. She wondered why her teacher hadn’t taught her the charm already. Perhaps she wanted her to learn not to be dependant on her magic? Either way, the thought of it made Charlotte’s little heart burn with anger.

Her eyes zeroed in on the duster nearby. It was so tiny compared to everything else in the room. It would never be enough to clean the entire place. At least, in a reasonable amount of time.

“Alright, let's do this,” She rubbed her hands together in anticipation.

Magic, at its core, was a simple thing. It all boiled down to just wanting something so bad that the universe just had to comply. Of course, a few demanding words were oftentimes needed to make said universe listen, but that wasn't much of an issue.

The universe, in turn, was quite a stubborn thing. The only way you could get what you want was by ‘bribing’ the universe with offerings of mana. And the only way, it seemed, to be able to gather enough mana to do anything impressive, was if the universe liked you enough to give you the ability to store and manipulate mana. And even with those who had the ability, you had to make the request specific, otherwise the you’d just end up with a disaster.

That, in fact, was the reason mages had crafted and shared spells in the first place. Simple little guides that make it that make it so much easier to get the universe to listen. Without the, sometimes fatal, trial and error process that came with trying to figure out the right wording of the demand.

So Charlotte took one last, long look at the page and stuffed it back inside her pocket.

She focused deep within her, where she imagined a ball of light resided, glowing in a pulsating warmth. That ball was her soul, cutting through the darkness with the mana stored within. She reached out and pulled at it. There was a somewhat unpleasant tugging in her gut, but she held on. She could feel the magic being drawn out of her and gathering at the tips of her fingers. Ever so slowly, she raised her arms in front of her, right at the duster.

Taking a deep breath, she chanted the spell. It was long, as most charms tend to be, but the words were simple enough for her recite. She felt her magic draw out with each syllable, step by step reaching completion.

As the last syllable left her lips, she felt a final burst of magic be squeezed out of her.

It took a lot more out of her than she'd thought.

The tiny duster still sat there, unassuming. But Charlotte knew better. It was no longer an ‘ordinary’ duster.

“Alright there, duster!” She said, “I order you to clean this place up! Leave no speck behind!”

And the duster rose up into the air and began to clean Hecate's personal ‘collection’.

Her work done, the girl sat back and began to flip through her comic book. It should be no time before the place would be clean.

When the duster had cleaned around a quarter of the room, Charlotte decided that that was enough. She didn't need Hecate to find out that she'd been using magic, and had ripped out a page from one of her precious spellbooks. She could just imagine the lecture she'd get if she ever found out.

“OK, that's enough. You can stop now,” She said.

But the duster just kept on dusting away at the various antiques.

She began to grow nervous, “Uh, S-stop…?”

It kept on going.

“I said stop!” She snapped.

No use. It still didn't listen.

There was an old hatchet nearby. It seemed to still be in good enough condition to use.

Charlotte picked it up and heaved it over her shoulder.

“If you don't stop, I'll cut you in half!” She warned.

The duster, of course, just kept on cleaning.

With a cry, she pulled back and swung the hatchet with all her strength. The sound of breaking wood filled her ears, and Charlotte grinned in triumph.

But her joy was short-lived, however, as when she opened her eyes, there was not one, but two dusters now.

Well… this was becoming quite the doozy.

Since destroying them didn't work, Charlotte changed tactics and tried to grab the dusters out of the air. But they were much too fast, and seemed to be able to tell where she'd strike. It was impossible for her to catch them with her hands. And she hadn't mastered casting her magic quickly, so she couldn't use that either.

She miscalculated her lunge, and her foot caught on something. She fell with a loud crash to the ground. She spent a while just laying there on the floor. Her knee hurt. She must've scraped it during her fall.

There was the sound of wood breaking, and there was a lot more dust now.

Curious, Charlotte got up… and almost fell back down when she saw what was going on.

The duster had multiplied themselves. Now, she could see that there were at least six of them in the room, and still multiplying. They were cleaning with a frenzy. In fact, it seemed that they were making things worse; kicking up dust and knocking over things. Everything was getting even more chaotic.

The dust in the air made it hard for her to breathe. Suffocating her and bringing her into fits of coughing.

Trying to get away from it, Charlotte raced up the stairs and and opened the door into the shop area. She coughed and sputtered even as she took big gulps of fresh air.

As she was busy trying to catch her breath, she heard something clatter in the shop.

She whipped her head towards it and saw one of the dusters had gotten out. It was now dusting the items on the shelves, knocking some of them over.

Oh, this was very bad.

Charlotte rushed to the front of the shop and drew the curtains closed. It was bad enough with all the noise. She didn't need some random person with a phone or camera seeing the flying feather dusters and taking a picture.

Speaking of those dusters, some more of them had come up, and were throwing the shop into chaos.

Panicking, Charlotte dove under cash register and hoped that nothing found her. Crashes sounded all around her, there were even times when a particularly loud one came with the shaking of the ground. It was almost like a literal war zone out there.

But then, everything stopped. She couldn’t hear anything.

For a while, fear and curiosity warred inside of her. She wanted to know what was going on, but was still scared if those dusters were going to attack her. In the end, her curiosity won out, and Charlotte steeled herself and took a peek from the top of the counter.

Only to be met with the sharp sting of pain as someone grabbed her by the ear.

“WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT RIPPING PAGES OUT OF MY SPELLBOOKS, BRAT?!”

Perhaps there would never be any other time that Charlotte would be so happy to see her teacher so angry at her.

In fact, she was just so happy that she managed to pull herself free of her teacher’s grip and envelope her in a tight hug. She couldn’t help it, she cried then and there. And how could she not? She thought she was going to die there, as over dramatic as it sounds.

Hecate heaved a tired sigh, but seemed to be relieved as well, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Charlotte nodded, “I know, I know. I’ll never do it again, I promise!”  
Hecate rolled her eyes, “Alright, alright. Now you see why dabbling in magic without my supervision is unwise?”

Charlotte nodded again, and pressed herself closer to her teacher.

Hecate sighed once more and began to pet the girl’s head, “How’s about we get you home? I’ll take care of things here.”

“Ok…” Charlotte mumbled as she wiped away her tears.

And with that, Charlotte took Hecate’s offered hand. It was a nice, reassuring warmth that contrasted with the suffocating dust of a few minutes before. It managed to bring a smile to the girl’s face.

Needless to say, Charlotte did leave the spellbooks alone after that.

That still didn’t stop her from getting into trouble on almost daily basis, though.


End file.
